PRIVATE PARTS & PIECES IV - A CATCH AT THE TABLES

Something that's interesting about the course of Genesis history and the way the band and its various members were received, is that without exception, every single one of them 'went pop', but only some of them were blamed for it. To me, 'prog' has always been a division of 'pop', and the pejorative meaning of that latter word only came later when 'prog' morphed from an attitude into a genre and needed to have boundaries that could be policed. As opposed to 'selling out', a much more plausible theory is that Genesis and its (former) members just moved with the times, as pop musicians do, and that some were just better at it than others.

Someone who clearly wasn't cut out to be a pop star, was Anthony Phillips. Not that he is a bad songwriter, in fact, he is a very good songwriter, albeit one that doesn't deal in hooks, and therefore, as a pop musician, unfit for the 80s. This - and probably also musical taste - led Phillips to embark on an alternative route for his solo career of free music, one that eventually became his main course: the Private Parts & Pieces series, in which he explored, for all intents and purposes, a kind of modern chamber music with the twelve string guitar as a basis (most of the times).

This is the fourth installment, and sees the introduction of the drum machine in the series. Which in itself is an interesting event, as this is also something that all the Genesis members eventually start to do. Phillips had already used it on '1984', but on that album it served much more as a cheap replacement for real drums, as opposed to him using the drum machine like it was used on Genesis' 'Duchess', or Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight': as an instrument providing a kind of relentlessness and a kind of sound that would be impossible from a live drummer, essentially using the drum machine as an instrument unique onto itself.

The machine rears its head in the fourth installment of the 'Arboretum Suite', a beautiful piece, mainly played on 6 string and 12 string guitar (and some keyboard), that Phillips composed for the wedding of two friends in 1980, based on Winkworth Arboretum in Surrey. Here, it is just playing along in the background. Yet, on another piece, 'Dawn Over The Lake', the machine is an integral part of the composition. This is just Phillips improvising on his 12 string guitar, while the drum machine is playing. The piece lasts for more than 10 minutes and is one of the most exquisite things Phillips, or any Genesis member, ever set to record. He not only follows the drum machine with his playing, he also plays into its echoing, using the echo effect on his 12 string too, creating all kinds of overtones to great atmospheric and emotional effect.

That the entirety of the album is not as good as that piece, can hardly be surprising or disappointing. Most pieces on the album are beautiful displays of what could be called avant-chamber, a bit in the vein of Penguin Cafe Orchestra, but with a lot more British romanticism weaved into it. There's a good song, 'Sistine', which is a lovely sailor love song, with a typically British funny side to it. Some of the keyboard pieces are maybe not as good, a bit too New Agey, and overall the sound of the recording is very tinny, thin and bright without much body to it.

Having said that, while the lows are not that low, the highs here are very very high, so overall this is a very good Anthony Phillips album.

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